


The Long Way Out

by Neyiea



Series: misfit(toy)s [6]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jeremiah's INTENSE feelings of friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 09:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Four days after their first meeting Jeremiah and Bruce cross paths again.Jeremiah is certain that they're going to become the very best of friends.





	The Long Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to think of a summary for this series as a whole, but instead of anything useful my mind is just like:
> 
> Jerome, rolling past in a pair of heelys while chewing gum obnoxiously: Miah, even I know that that's not how to make friends.
> 
> Bruce, who is so very tired: I kind of hate to agree with him, but he's right and he should say it.
> 
> And then they high-five (Bruce only somewhat reluctantly) while Jeremiah watches in absolute horror.
> 
> ANYWAYS, next part is likely going to take a bit longer than usual to come out because I want to focus on finishing up my ongoing multi-chaptered fic, but I promise that I love fooling around with this AU of my own making so much that I won't keep away for too long.

It’s not that he doesn’t expect Bruce to follow through with his life-changing offer; from what Jeremiah knows of him he’s the sort who keeps his promises. Honorable and dependable, to the point where he’d put his own life on the line to save a handful of civilians. It was awe-inspiring, but also equally ridiculous. Now that Jeremiah’s eyes are open he understands that no one completely in their right mind should allow themselves to be led to the hangman’s noose so freely. Someday Bruce will need to realize that he’s worthy of being more than the sacrificial lamb he’d been asked to become—that they’d both been asked to become—during Jerome’s final scheme.

So it’s not that he doesn’t expect it, it’s just that he expects a delay in the process. Expects that Bruce might take a week or so to recover from the situation he’d had to go through, as Jeremiah’s own recovery had only been so quick because of Ecco’s faithful assistance. 

It’s only been four days since he’d last seen Bruce when his security system alerts him to a trespasser on his property. He watches a dark car pull up to his door, detached, and then he feels his interest skyrocket when he sees who exactly has come to visit.

Although he looks back on the sordid affair involving his brother with a critical eye and finds fault in so many details that he hadn’t considered at the time, there are some instances that are striking for reasons other than foolishness and madness. 

There is only one common denominator in those memories. 

While Jeremiah had been at his worst Bruce had been at his best. Upon first impression he was respectful and kind, and the hidden depths of his character became more apparent as time wore on. While Jeremiah had been fighting with the desire to run and hide Bruce had strode through the crowd towards Jerome, and Jeremiah had watched his back and had thought that he could go forward too, so long as someone so brave was there with him. And then, when the ordeal was over and Jeremiah was free to go on as he had been, Bruce was there with an offer that he couldn’t possibly refuse. 

At the end of their shared ordeal Jeremiah had begun to tentatively think of Bruce as a friend. 

After days of reminiscing he no longer feels any uncertainty about it. 

When he’d been notified about the trespasser he’d been expecting another police officer, or maybe another delivery of Jerome’s artifacts from Arkham. 

Instead he’s gifted with the presence of Bruce Wayne himself, who buzzes the intercom and looks up at the camera as he speaks.

“Jeremiah?” His voice crackles through the sound system. “May I come in? I have something for you.” It’s the first words he’s spoken to him since they’d parted ways after Jerome’s demise. The first time he’s heard Bruce’s voice since becoming how he was meant to be. Even distorted, it’s music to Jeremiah’s ears. 

He’s pushing the button to unlock his front door before Bruce is even finished talking. He smooths out his hair and fixes his tie, then settles the new glasses with fake lenses that Ecco had retrieved for him on his face. He looks exactly as Bruce would expect him to. 

He meets Bruce at the bottom of the stairs leading into his home, escorts him to his office, and finds out just what brought Bruce back into his path so soon. He’s come to deliver the necessary paperwork for the grant personally. The file folder he’s carrying has a phone number scrawled across the top in neat print, and Jeremiah already has a sneaking suspicion that he knows whose number it is. 

“You can read it in your own time. There’s a lot to go through, and if there’s anything you need clarification on please don’t hesitate to call. That’s my personal cell number.” Bruce hands the folder over and smiles. “And when you’re ready to sign let me know. I’ll come pick everything up.” 

Jeremiah looks at the digits. Commits them to memory. 

“Thank you for coming all this way.” He appreciates the personal touch, as well as the vested interest Bruce is obviously taking in his work. It would have been nothing for him to send someone else, someone insignificant, to drop off the paperwork in his place. 

For Bruce to come in person shows that he already believes that Jeremiah is on the same level as he is.

Equal footing was what all the greatest friendships were built on.

“I’m glad to be helping your project in what little ways I can,” Bruce says, as if people were just lining up in the streets to fund Jeremiah’s vision. As if his support wasn’t integral to everything. As if he wasn’t freely giving Jeremiah all that he’s ever dreamed of.

‘You have a brilliant mind’, Bruce had told him. And then he’d backed up his statement by trusting in Jeremiah’s work more than anyone else ever had. That in itself was just as great a gesture as when Bruce had knelt beside him after Jerome had fled the stage and helped him slip free of the bomb-collar, assuring him that everything would turn out alright.

Things had turned out _better_ than alright. 

His help, his friendship, Jeremiah will return it all tenfold. A small part of him wishes Bruce could know, right now, just how far he was going to go. But it’s still too early. Jerome hasn’t even been buried yet. 

There’s time before he makes his first move. 

Time for him to lay a foundation.

He’s going to tear Gotham apart and build it up better. He’s going to change it fundamentally in a way that Jerome had been incapable of. 

“It means a lot to me,” is what he says, a shallow description of the depths that he feels. Bruce gifts him with another small smile and Jeremiah returns it, eyes casting down in the apprehensive way that he used to be.

Bruce is, in a way, the first friend he’s ever made. He’d been too young, too focused on his studies, to be on good terms with his peers while in school. Ecco has been around to protect and serve him for so long, but at the end of the day she was still employed by him. Bruce; he was here of his own free will, spending time with Jeremiah of his own volition.

He looks up from under his eyelashes and finds Bruce looking at the labyrinths taped up on his walls curiously. He wonders if Bruce likes solving puzzles too. If he’ll like the new maze that Jeremiah has started drafting.

Bruce notices his attention, and he regards Jeremiah with an inquisitive look.

“I heard from Detective Gordon that your maze covers a hundred acres.”

“Oh?” He’s not sure how he feels about the Detective speaking about him to Bruce. Though, now that he and Bruce are friends, obviously Bruce will be able to come directly to him regarding any questions he may have. That would be for the best. Who knows what kind of impression a bunch second-hand accounts of him would leave?

The tone of his voice must have given something away—he’ll have to work on that—and Bruce’s smile dims. Jeremiah watches it fade and feels a strange, but entirely reasonable, desire to make him smile again. Bruce is his friend. He wants Bruce to be happy. 

“I’m sorry. I overstepped, asking questions even though I know how highly you value your privacy,” Bruce’s apology is painstakingly genuine. If Jeremiah had been angry at him for asking a few questions, rather than irritated at Gordon for giving answers that weren’t his to give, the feeling would be forgotten already. “I’ve been so curious about you.”

What a coincidence it is, their mutual, shared interest in each other. They’ll have more than enough time to get to know each other better while Jeremiah begins his projects.

He can hardly wait to get started.

“Would you like to take the long way out?” He offers, putting the file folder down on his desk. “You could take a look around, if you’d like.”

Bruce’s eyes sparkle, and his smile returns. “I’d love to.”

Jeremiah feels himself stand a little bit straighter, pleased with himself. He pushes the emergency exit button under his desk and waves Bruce towards the newly opened doorway. 

“Follow me.”

He starts walking, Bruce beside him. The hallways are narrow enough that their shoulders occasionally brush.

One hundred acres. Seventy-three dead-ends. And even more paths that loop back into each other endlessly. He can’t stretch the walk out for too long—Bruce is bright enough to realize that something is amiss if Jeremiah seems to have difficulty solving his own labyrinth—but he can loop around once or twice to give himself another quarter of an hour, at least.

Completely reasonable, since parting with his new friend was such sweet sorrow. Even the promise of seeing him again soon to start work on the generators seems inadequate. 

Maybe, if he signed the papers tonight, Bruce would come back tomorrow. 

“It’s amazing, the level of detail you’ve put into the layout. Has anyone been able to solve it?”

Jeremiah thinks briefly about his brother but brushes him aside after a moment of consideration. That had been a fluke. For all Jerome claimed that they thought the same, for all he claimed to have paid attention when they were children, it had all just been a ruse to make the old Jeremiah feel even more at a loss.

Jerome hadn’t ever been one to solve puzzles, just cheat at them. 

“I invited some of the top maze designers in the country to come and solve it upon its completion. One of them managed.”

“How long did it take them?”

“Three days.” 

“Amazing,” Bruce murmurs, his hand trailing out to skim his fingers along the concrete wall. The fact that he appears so enamored with something that Jeremiah put his entire heart and soul into making is incredibly gratifying. Jeremiah wonders what he’ll look like when he sees the functioning generators for the first time. What he’ll look like when he sees the new and improved Gotham for the first time. “I’ve heard that if someone were to keep their right hand on the wall they’d solve a maze eventually. Is that true?”

For Bruce to know about the wall-following technique is something Jeremiah takes as a sign; he and Bruce must have more in common than originally thought. 

“It is, so long as the maze is connected simply. However, when there are walls that are not connected to the outer perimeter putting a hand on the wall could very well just lead someone in circles. So long as the maze is elaborate enough there are ways to render that technique useless.”

“And you’ve made sure to add complications.” Bruce’s voice is tinted with wonder. Pride swells in the depths of Jeremiah’s chest. “May I ask what some of them are? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he says, and he actually means it. He wishes that someone had been this interested in talking about his labyrinths when he was a child. Better late than never, he supposes. “I have a few special dead-ends; if one were to just wander around with their hand on the wall they’d eventually set off motion detectors that trigger the release and detraction of specialized walls, creating an island of sorts.”

He doesn’t mention how the center islands could also be used as holding cells. 

“And they would just circle the island endlessly.”

“Exactly.”

“You really did think of everything, didn’t you?”

“Well, this was meant to be my last line of defense when Jerome eventually came for me. I put everything I had into it.” It was almost a shame that he’d have to destroy it, but he can see the bigger picture now. This labyrinth would have to be demolished for his new one to come to fruition. 

Bruce is silent for a few moments.

“Jeremiah,” his voice is soft, gentle in a way Jeremiah doesn’t quite understand, “If you ever need to talk to someone… I realize that we haven’t known each other for very long, but I want you to know that if you ever felt the need to talk, about anything, that I’m willing to listen.”

“Thank you, Bruce.”

Bruce is far too kind, really. Jeremiah has no doubt that there must be innumerable people trying to claw their way inside his heart, desperate for the warmth of his devotion and companionship. Greedy for the material and immaterial benefits that come with Bruce’s friendship and loyalty. They don’t deserve him, they don’t deserve anything from him.

They don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as him.

The rest of their walk together is spent speaking of oubliettes and bridges, and the purple glow of his ‘The End’ sign comes into view much too quickly.

“Perhaps, if you ever have the time, I could show you some of my other complications and explain their function.” He’d like for Bruce to have an opportunity to fully appreciate his old work. It’s very rational for him to want to be complimented again, and he finds he appreciates Bruce’s validation above all others.

Destiny has thrown them together. His and Bruce’s paths were always meant to cross. It was only through running the gauntlet of fire that was Jerome’s machinations together that Jeremiah was able to become as he was meant to be. 

He thinks that Bruce is meant to become more, as well. There was a reason why Jerome wanted them both up on that stage, and as much as Jeremiah hates to associate any positive attributes to his brother Jerome had been uncannily perceptive at times, even as a child.

Though, to be fair to himself, Jeremiah had also realized that there was more to Bruce Wayne than what met the eye within the first few hours of meeting him. 

Bruce’s eyes gleam in the coloured light. “I’d like that.”

Bruce is filled with untapped potential. Jeremiah knows this, just as he knows that he is finally reaching his own potential.

“Wonderful. For now though, it looks as if this is goodbye. I look forward to working with you.” He holds his hand out, Bruce takes it without a second thought.

“Likewise. I hope to see you again soon.”

You will, Jeremiah thinks as Bruce’s hand slips away.

Jeremiah watches Bruce leave and wonders if it is possible to rebuild a person, just like he’s going to rebuild the city. 

He thinks about himself in the now, and the way he was before he let his true nature take hold of him. What Bruce needs is a tipping point, like he himself had gone through. And Jeremiah is such a good friend that he will be the one to provide it for him.

Between building himself a new bunker, planning a new labyrinth, and getting started on the generators, he’ll devise a way to give Bruce exactly what he needs. Bruce, like himself, will finally become all that he is meant to be. After all, equal footing was what all the greatest friendships were built on.

And he knows that he and Bruce are meant to become the very best of friends. 

Together they’ll do amazing things to Gotham.

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO, thinking about where I'm going to take this fic from here, I feel like it could eventually move away from being completely gen (because I love baby!batjokes in all forms), and was just wondering how y'all might feel about that possibility.


End file.
